Hey, it’s me again, I’ve fixed up the links, images, added remaining albums that I know of. I still might change/add few more but as of June:
- -Added ‘Stability of Broken heart’ by 旧雨忆梦幻想乐团 - it got its own tier
- -Added ‘The Golden Age Will Return Again’ by 旧雨忆梦幻想乐团 - S
- -Added ‘Ring World Magical Country Part 1&2’ by Chama - S
- -Added Full version of ‘Sweet Smells and Foolish Evils’ by Burnyuho - It’s S now
- -Added ‘Ancient Hidden Prayer (Demo)’ by 祈仙沙月 - S
- -Added ‘A Closed Eternal Paradise’ by Otobake - A
- -Added ‘Dreams in Parallel Phantasia’ hosted by Eban - A-
- -Added ‘Explore the magic of genes’ by 文水海洋俱乐部 - A-
- -Added ‘ゲーム概念東方風合同 (Demo)’ hosted by アズレシアン - A-
- -Raised ‘Near Death Experience’ to A-
- -Added Full version of ‘Alchemist of Desire’ by SHO - it’s B+ now
- -Raised ‘History of Distortion’ to B+
- -Added ‘Songs for All Weak Adolescence’ by Kaisei - B+
- -Added ‘the Potential Crisis’ by 旧雨忆梦幻想乐团 - B+
- -Added ‘Fractals of Infinite Cosmos’ by kirbio - B
- -Added ‘Patients of Salpetriere’ by Kaisei - B
- -Added ‘Bubbling Imaginary Treasures OST <Hana>’ by NED - B
- -Added ‘Resurgent Creations (Demo)’ by 吞了魔炮后就吃不下了吧-hpf - B-
- -Added ‘Gensokyo Light Festival (Demo)’ by Ivan Lychkov - B-
- -Added ‘Land of Fruits’ by 吞了魔炮后就吃不下了吧-hpf - C+
- -Added ‘Lunatic & Noisy Festival’ and ‘True Fruit of the Galaxy’ by Myaga - C+
- -Added ‘Artificial Star in Forgotten Orbit’ by Lunar - C
As you can tell I really, really enjoyed discovering some of the newest albums, especially the trilogy made by 旧雨忆梦幻想乐团 released in less than half of the year, especially my personal favourite “Stability of Broken heart”, which I’m working on describing professional review of to present just how much this album means to me based of my experience with culture.
In fact with the release of said album I grew confident enough to mention and point out an issue I’ve observed over some of the releases. So if this turns out to be a catastrophic take, then at the very least, I’ll be content with leaving this thread in the state of things it’s in right now. I want to begin with mentioning that not only I don’t want every album to be the same, quite the opposite, nor I want it to pander to my own bias, but I also want to start with two of my personal reasons why all of this is so important to me before I get into something way less subjective.
First and foremost, the music. I always thought Touhou-style was amazing. It’s the main reason why I’m a fan of Touhou, the fangames, etc. Initially when I joined the fandom I was saddened how most people just focused on characters, even forming specific communities around fawning over specifically Marisa for example. But the Touhou-style albums community was always this perfect place for me because it was always predominantly about music. Secondly, I always admired how all these fangames and fan albums paid respect to the original work. I don’t think ZUN is this perfect person like I’ve mentioned few times, even on this very forum, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say the dude was and still is a musical genius at the very least and he created this wonderful setting where characters from different mythologies, cultures etc. can come together and just hang out, while sometimes drunkenly battling to the death.
I don’t have to be Japanese or to believe in Buddhism to appreciate Byakuren or her theme. And I always thought that’s great. I tend to return to ZUN’s interview where he said UFO was supposed to have Byakuren’s brother be the final boss, but he went against it. See, I don’t think having more male characters in Touhou would be a bad thing, if implemented well, like with Rinnosuke or Unzan, for purpose of reflecting historical romance (although Miko x Tojiko is a thing) or for something else entirely, I’d be alright with it and I’m usually fine with fanworks that add a guy or two, but I still would prefer that if it’s in Touhou setting, the cast should be primarily female. Not because of my own personal preference (I’m dude, but I still see myself as Polish Reimu because I’m so greedy and judgemental of others lol), but because out of respect for the original work, respect for the original author. Touhou being mainly Japanese import and having almost as popular doujinshi side, it’s unavoidable there will be a lot of works focusing on NSFW elements. Not only is that a different culture I don’t fully understand, I also have to accept not everything will be for me. What is surprising is that with some eastern fanworks that are focused on NSFW, they still can be great. I remember chatting with someone on /jp/ how they’ve read this doujin/love story about Akyuu’s incarnations, that they’ve stayed for the writing instead of the obvious and I think that’s brilliant. However, especially with some of the modern releases, I feel like the line has to be drawn.
From what I’ve seen, according to my sources and as well as according to my (now former) friends, a lot of beginning or struggling composers and artists alike in this fandom, get introduced to a lot of different groups (some of them you probably already have seen being mentioned here) and they get the opportunity to work on them on collabs. There’s nothing wrong with it. Some of my favourite albums are collabs (Fairyland of Mishmash, Canvas of Music-colored Winds or Book of Star Mythology started as a Touhou-style album that is a banger in more ways than one). However in said collabs, one thing that often gets lost, is individuality, resulting in something I’ve complained about several times already, going for quantity over quality, pumping out tracks and getting as many artists as possible instead of focusing on what makes each of them great. So to grab even more attention, I’ve noticed said artists resort to pandering. Either specific fetishes or claiming “We have our first ever POC in Touhou!”, even if it’s technically untrue, but I digress. Again, fine, in theory. You still post it online, in public. People have the right to criticise it and have opinions about your work, just like you have a right to express yourself through your work.
The amount of times I’ve seen artists, either new ones, going through an art block, or just becoming pressured to include things like that, is quite saddening to me. Then going out of their way to insult or accuse fans of your previous works just because they don’t like the new direction, that’s even more saddening. Yes, like the saying goes - “sex sells”. If you go to the latest albums that have the ‘thing’ I’ve observed, you might see me and others complaining, but you will see people praising it, sometimes, often or always more, because it panders to their preferences. To reiterate the two personal reasons why I’ve got so invested in this fandom, usually these albums are some of the most bland ones I’ve ever had the displeasure to listen to and if it doesn’t look pleasing to me, I usually won’t bother giving it another go. It’s possible someone will download it specifically because it panders to their taste, yes and we’ll get to that, but debating your fans or fans of your friend, who might, or might not actually know a thing about music, very rarely brings something good.
If music is amazing and doesn’t try to ruin someone else’s prior work, I don’t care if it includes stuff I personally don’t have good experience with - Eastern composers usually show it well with people like Chama, that just now dropped another banger of an album, although the cover of it is not for me and that’s fine! Because Chama specifically said RWMC isn’t part of the Touhou Project, it’s his own thing. I also don’t have to read through the guy’s discord or twitter (which I’ve checked and… yeah) I can just separate the artist from the craft and have mutual respect that way. But what if it’s an album set in a Touhou setting and I specifically have an issue with the music, not the designs? I still remember when I was really harsh to Burnyuho on her first album, specifically, final boss’ theme. Did she tell me I was wrong and I should GTFO? No, she gave me a like and has proven over time with improved releases, that I was just complaining for no reason and I don’t know a thing, her actions spoke louder than her words. But that’s two examples, of two my favourite artists, on the subject of what I was talking about with my two subjective points. I recently came up with the main reason why I’m writing this message and why I think artists in this community should avoid doing what I’ve mentioned.
The regret. The same people and artists who seem to be in fact most involved with the ‘Phase’ or ‘Change’ in the coomerish style, focusing on quantity over quality or trying to include everyone and everyone’s fetishes are, even to my surprise, are usually the very same artists that most often delete their own work and projects, people who want to wipe existence of something they made previously. I don’t want to give too many examples and accuse people of something I’m not fully confident about, but Rapture of Khione, Reawakening of Youkai Mountain, early C&D work, even some of the western fangames, the list can go on. Sometimes these projects were deleted "because of internal drama", sometimes they just mysteriously disappeared and became lost media, with talk or trying to archive them becoming forbidden from the artist that made it. And if there’s something that hurts more than an artist that I’ve respected calling me names or ruining their or someone else’s work, it’s definitely trying to delete a piece of history or art and not allowing it to be discussed or shared any more. And I get it, I’ve worked with artists that didn’t like their old stuff before or even have deleted it, but at the very least, they still allowed it to be reuploaded all as long as people didn’t place ads on said videos or didn’t try to make money off their work and they didn’t insult fans of their older work. How are you going to improve as an artist if you will just start over any time you make something and you’re not satisfied with it? And to tie my point fully, would you like to be a part of a project that can just delete your entire input, just because of one person? Keep in mind, if you’re part of the team and a different person decides to do something, either from adding controversial/alienating OC, try to go after ‘the haters’, your name can get dragged down and usually, from what I’ve seen with groups with negative results like that, people try to hide it afterwards.
Whether the projects that are being deleted are good or not, whether you were the only artist on it (but perhaps you were just influenced to include something questionable in it back then), I still think they shouldn’t be deleted, I still think they should be preserved. And you definitely shouldn’t go after people who won’t respect your wishes for just trying to preserve something. Not on the internet. Yes, you might be successful and something will become lost media forever, but forever on the internet is an oxymoron, it never actually lasts forever and you have to accept that. If you are actually hesitant to include your name under a group project or to release something because of someone else’s interests, don’t do it, no one is forcing you to include things you don’t agree with or you consider you might regret later.
I do understand that nowadays it can be hard to be an artist, to see someone else’s work get way more interest and fans than your work gained, even though you might’ve worked more and harder on it. Or to be always compared to someone else. Or to have difficulty distancing yourself from your work and take things less personally. We’re all adults here (at least I hope so) and again, if you truly enjoy doing what you’re doing, I can be wrong and I’m just projecting, even despite the evidence and the sources of my observations. I’m leaving with this wall of text and two smaller pieces of advice/suggestions not because I want to change people to a certain way, because firstly, I know I can’t and I definitely shouldn’t be changing minds of anyone and secondly, I do think there’s beauty to all the different kinds of this subculture, not everything has to be for me, you all have a freedom to express yourself just as I do to express my opinions about your expressions, at least until I’ll get banned or something (I mean look at current war between Helldivers 2’s artists/mods and their fans)
So tl;dr if you ain’t reading through all that reasoning
To the artists:Everyone’s cases are different. As long as you have fun with it, you don’t regret posting it on the internet and you don’t argue with people or take the bait of some other people, you should be fine and have my full respect and support, even if you won’t be my #1, but I’m just apparently a condescending guy who doesn’t even have an inch of your talent and I honestly will always envy you that. Just… be honest with yourself and others and I mean it. If you are in a bad situation where you do need money, you’d like more attention and recognition etc. you can absolutely have your art help you with that, you can make horny commissions or include risky things, just ask yourself if it’s truly worth it before you hit the restart button for the nth time. I bet there are people who will support you if you’re honest with them without resorting to pandering specifically to them. I want to support Chama or Burnyuho financially, even though I didn’t want to at first and now they don't even give me opinion. I bet there are other artists that will teach you how to achieve greater heights without having to make a project together you might regret working on in the future. You can make everything about sex or ethnicity or non-human art, but not everyone is into that, some people just want to consume some good music. Also don't make releases for your albums discord server exclusive, if you want people to follow you, they will do so without forcing them to do so.
To the past and future posters on this thread:Thanks for still checking in on this place, like holy moly. I want to express my gratitude for doing so and also, don’t worry for not reading/checking through every single thing posted on this/these thread(s)/pages over the past 5+ years or so. No one expects you to, don’t worry if something already has been said, as long as you’ve discovered something cool out of this or helped someone else discover an album, that’s all that matters. I’d be dishonest with myself if I didn’t admit I’ve been triggered at least once here by people praising imho something I have a heavy distaste for or mentioning people with whom I only have bad experiences, but that’s my personal problem for getting to know these people in the first place and I bet they might be really nice to someone else. I also invite you to give me your opinion about said observations. My close friends who don’t know as much about Touhou seem to agree with me about it, but I don’t want to be in an echo chamber, so different thoughts and opinions are just as valuable.
